New RISE-H2020 project awarded: LACEGAL

LACEGAL (March 2017-Feb 2021) is a Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE) lead by the ICC at the University of Durham with participation from other 9 EU institutions (including UAM, Spain) and 6 non-EU countries (Argentina, Chile, Brasil, Colombia, Mexico, China).

RISE project supports exchange of researchers and training activities for Early Stage Researchers (ESRs). The LACEGAL research program addresses some of the biggest questions in science:

• What is the Dark Matter and how are its properties encoded in the structure of galaxies and galaxy clusters?

• What is the Dark Energy behind the accelerating expansion of the Universe and how does it relate to the rest of physics? Is it a cosmological constant or a new form of mass-energy, or is it a low-energy deviation from Einstein's theory of gravity?

• How did galaxies acquire their observed forms? What determines their characteristic properties?

• How did our galaxy, the Milky Way, form and how can this be read from the "archeological" record preserved in its stellar populations?

The research program is ambitious and ground breaking and is only possible through the opportunity that RISE provides to bring together world leaders in a wide range of areas to work on common problems. The ability to exchange ESRs and ERs will provide the additional research capacity that is necessary to deliver the program.